MICHAEL JACKSON NEEDS LUNG SWAP

MICHAEL JACKSON is battling a genetic disease that has left him half blind and needing a lung transplant, it was claimed last night.
The superstar, 50 — seen in a wheelchair earlier this year — is said to be so frail he can barely speak.
Jacko’s secret was revealed by his biographer Ian Halperin, who declared: “He needs a lung transplant, but may be too weak to go through with it. He also has emphysema and chronic gastrointestinal bleeding, which his doctors have had a lot of trouble stopping.

Stricken ... frail Jacko
“It’s the bleeding that’s the most problematic part. It could kill him.”
Halperin, an award-winning investigative journalist, said Jacko was stricken with an inherited condition called A1AD — alpha-1 anti-trypsin deficiency. Sufferers lack a protein which protects the lungs.
Halperin, a Canadian who has written for respected Rolling Stone magazine, said: “He can barely speak. The vision in his left eye is 95 per cent gone.
“For years Michael has been working with his doctors to make sure it doesn’t progress.
“He has been on many medications that have stabilised him.”
Jacko’s brother JERMAINE confirmed: “He’s not doing so well right now. This isn’t a good time.”
Skint Jacko, who was cleared of child abuse three years ago, is being forced to flog off treasures from his Neverland ranch — which he has now abandoned.
And a woman calling herself Billie Jean Jackson — who claims she is the star’s wife — is suing him for £700,000.
She insists she is the mother of his youngest child Prince Michael II and is demanding joint custody.